


Regarding the Breaking Point

by BleedingTypewriter



Series: Regarding Twitter (SFW) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dealing with anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Internalizing stress, Keith is a supportive boyfriend, Keith knows that feel, M/M, Overwhelmed Lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingTypewriter/pseuds/BleedingTypewriter
Summary: Sometimes Keith gets it, even when Lance can't anymore.Part of a series of edited/updated threads from Twitter.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Regarding Twitter (SFW) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744792
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	Regarding the Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> "Regarding Twitter" is a series of my favourite threads updated, lightly edited, and tagged. All original versions are available on my account [here](https://twitter.com/BleedingType/status/1199399029395709952) (warning: NSFW account). Length and tone varies as Twitter is where I tend to play and explore.

Look, Lance gets it: Keith isn’t good at things like feelings and people. Even if he _didn’t_ get it by now, the guy isn’t exactly shy about reminding him. “I’m sorry,” he says frequently; and, “I’m so bad at this,” and “Please just tell me what I can do to help.”

And Lance is okay with it. Really. It’s not like Keith is emotionless; in fact, his stunted ability to connect with others belies a deep-seated, primal tendency to feel _too much_. Most often, he just doesn’t know what to do with all the fiddly things other people make him feel.

Which works out great, actually, because Lance so often _does_ know. He feeds on emotion. He _metabolizes_ it; takes it in and processes it and pops it back out again, ready to be breathed in by the people around him.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” Keith often requests (because if left to his own devices the best he has to offer is generally an awkward hand on Lance’s arm or back, and a thick silence as he waits for the other to speak up first), and that’s nearly always no-problemo. He tells Keith that he needs space, or to be held, or to take on a roomful of training gladiators with him until his nervous energy is expended. Whatever he needs.

He tells him, when Keith is the one who’s not okay, that he needs to talk to Lance in return; patiently draws the truth out him, question by question, affirmation by affirmation, touch by touch.

It’s an odd dynamic, perhaps, but it works.

Mostly.

Usually.

Except when.

It might not seem like it, given his propensity for drama, but Lance has a thick skin, and he compartmentalizes like a _beast_. So when he accepts an offer for a series of guest lectures at the Garrison, he swallows around all his doubts (that he’s the paladin with the least to offer when it comes to actual advice, what does he even think he’s doing here?) and forces himself through exactly fourteen sessions of dead-eyed cadets earning their lecture credits.

He answers their lacklustre questions (there’s a participation requirement, fuck his life), and doesn’t, no matter how badly he wants to, call in sick for a single lesson.

And when his grandmother passes away while Keith is off on an extended mission with the Blades, he jumps into action, taking his distraught mother’s place as acting executor and packing up his Abuelita’s things as though he’d never known or loved the woman, because otherwise the task would be insurmountable). He rifles through her life and throws away half of it and pulls himself together at the service so that he can deal with the caterers and the funeral director.

And when he wakes up in the morning and can’t breathe, anymore; can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t fucking _breathe_ …

He inhales, anyway.

Any one thing in isolation, and he might have been okay. But all put together…

“Tell me what I can do to help,” Keith says upon returning from his mission, leaner and more tired, but blessedly in one piece.

Lance doesn't know.

Worse than that, he kind of feels like the next time someone asks him to make a decision about _anyone’s_ well-being, including his own, he might just defenestrate himself.

So he says, choked and tight but as even as he can force his exhausted voice to be, “I can’t.”

And then there’s the silence, the hand on his arm, Keith’s worried face.

And silence.

And Keith’s thumb trekking back and forth, and an edge to his worry, like he’s sorry.

But Lance doesn’t need concern and he doesn’t need apologies. He searches for it—he _does_ —but he can’t find it in himself to be responsible for _another thing_ , not even his own comfort. He can’t make a single decision more, not even if it’s whether or not to forgive Keith for his cluelessness, here.

“ _Please_ ,” he says, and he’s not crying, his eyes aren’t even wet (he can’t muster even that), but his voice is tight. It’s caught in the space just inside his jaw; tripping over his Adam’s apple; warbling with his shaking lips. “I don’t _know_ ,” he continues, “I don’t know how to fix anything else right now. Please don’t ask me to–”

Lance only catches the look on Keith’s face for a second before he’s pulled into his chest. He wouldn’t notice it at all, except it’s a look he’s not sure he’s ever seen there before. It’s a flash of recognition; a little _aha_ ; a little _oh, that_. It’s a look _Lance_ wears when he’s busy metabolizing all those feelings; when he’s confided in and he _gets it_. “Tell me what happened.”

Lance shrugs as best he can, smushed against Keith’s left pec. “It’s just all the stuff while you were gone. You know.”

“No, I mean...just tell me how you’re feeling. About everything.”

“...everything?”

Everything is...a lot. Keith sighs heavily, and he doesn’t have to say it for Lance to hear the ‘I’m so bad at this,’ in it. All the same, he keeps talking. “When I first became paladin of the black lion, I thought I was going to crumble under the pressure. I just...all I wanted was someone to ask me if I was okay, or how I was feeling, instead of just looking for more answers. So I just...I don’t know…”

Lance can’t talk for a second, and he feels a little bad about it, because he can hear the confidence leaching out of Keith’s voice as he goes along.

But he just.

He doesn’t _know_.

“I got the news on Facebook. My cousin messaged me before my mom could call...” He starts there (dry and tight).

And all the way through, Keith stays here (awkward and determined): “I’m sorry—That’s awful—I love you—It’s okay—Then what happened?”

And Lance ends here (wet and loose): “...and I have nowhere to put any of it. I’m so full of _everything_ and I have nowhere left to put it.”

Keith holds him close and lets him soil his Blade uniform with snot and tears, and murmurs into his hair, “You can put some of it with me,” and Lance wails until his head throbs; clings until his fingertips sting in the nail beds; needs, needs, _needs_ Keith’s stream of stiff, supportive nothings against his scalp.

Needs, too, the way he waits patiently until Lance’s face is itchy, but dry—until every blink is uncomfortable with the swollen drag of his eyelids—to lean down and kiss him (heedless of the fact that Lance is kind of surprised there’s anything left _to_ kiss; kind of expects to deflate under the soothing weight of Keith’s lips).

He puts some of it with Keith.

Or maybe Keith takes it from him.

Either way.


End file.
